Yup. I have a similar argument before. If one reads more about Hitler and the Nazis, they are actually not different to any of the standard third world dictators like Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi. The difference is that the Nazis were only more powerful because they inherited a working institution-- especially the Prussian-based military-- while third world countries had to start from scratch after decolonisation.

The Nazis like other dictators are very inefficient. I am reading Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”. The book goes through the convoluted bureaucracy and logistics of the Holocaust. Different pen pushers and administrators arguing who should be able to use the trains for their own departmental needs. What struck me the most is that the Nazis wasted so much effort transporting so-called undesirables to concentration camps, when their own soldiers are struggling to get supplies and reinforcements to the frontlines!

More importantly, as you correctly mentioned, Nazi Germany struggled to feed their own people. As a matter of fact, there is strong evidence that Hitler started the war in Europe to stave off the looming economic crisis, which his own economic minister warned him of, thanks to endless government spending particularly with the re-armement. That economic crisis had been warded (temporarily of course) by plundering the resources of their conquered territories.

Yes, for the general population. Otherwise, companies will stop the psychological pricing. Same with corporate snooping to see our shopping and grocery habits and then send us with targeted ads.

It never works on me. I was taught at a very early age that pricing down by one cent of one dollar is a psychological trick and that I should round up to the nearest whole number.

Trump is very unpredictable on Ukraine. He said he will support Ukraine but who knows. But some say he will withdraw support from Taiwan, which is unlikely because he never had good relations with Xi and China. As for Israel-Palestine, we know where stands on that.

For me as non-American, I am more concerned with geopolitics. I wish Trump would provide support to Ukraine. But if he doesn’t, at least he will stand against China. I understand many Americans are tired of over twenty years of hawkish foreign policies with corporate and imperialist agenda, but if Trump withdraws from Europe, at least he should pivot towards China. It balances out between complete isolationism and imperialism (I believe on a case by case basis of interventionism as part of just war theory, like the US entry into World War 2 and intervention on Yougoslavia).

For example, I definitely see the decrease in frequency, or not at all, on Reddit philosophy getting into frontpage despite having millions of subscribers. Many posts from r/philosophy often would gain thousands of up votes landing them into the front page. However, since Reddit’s crack down on bot activities, I see r/philosophy posts getting only a fraction of the number of up votes they used to get, which makes almost none of the posts go into the front page. It is clear evidence that bots manipulate the votes.

I don’t know about you, but others also noticed completely innocuous and benign comments just getting a downvote. Before I would chalk it up to people just down voting for no reason or to downvote others to propel their own content at the expense of others; but after what transpired with Reddit’s crackdown on bot activities and user participation just so happened to decreased significantly? One would have to admit or acknowledge there is deliberate manipulation on what contents get to be seen or promoted long before and even as we speak.

I know some people down vote and don’t discuss, but it’s very strange in a political discussion when you don’t get a pushback but getting so many downvotes.

My dude, there are plenty of actual automated bots on Reddit. IIRC when Reddit cracked down hard on bot accounts recently, over half of users and participation in many subreddits also decreased. That alone says that there is artificial engagement on Reddit rather than genuine human interaction (which vindicates the dead Internet theory). It explains a lot as to why a very innocent and neutral comment somehow gets a downvote: they are just bots downvoting.

Even here in Lemmy, there are downvotes on the same benign comments and no explanation as to why someone would disagree. But even if the comment is political in nature, there are downvotes but no feedback as to why one would disagree. There is a post on c/climate on European Greens calling for Jill Stein not to run for US presidential elections because she would just siphon the votes from liberals and progressives even though she will not win. And many comments on that post are getting half or a third of downvotes, but there are no accompanying disagreeing comments to explain the disagreement. It is clear that there are bots in that post who are trying to downplay the repercussions of Stein running to US elections and democracy.

I wonder what the biodiversity was like in that period.

Winston Churchill’s government did not hold an election during six years of World War 2, but we didn’t see any shred of crocodile tears about it.

Of course there is more tit for tat deal, but North Korea will not send troops to combat if they think they will not gain anything from it militarily.

Right, people scoff at North Korean presence, but I doubt the North Korean soldiera would be used in human wave tactic as the Russians do. North Korea is still an independent sovereign entity, and the last thing they want is to let their troops be used by Russians in a shitty way. It obvious that North Korea will want to gain combat experience, the same way that South Korea sent troops to Vietnam fifty years before.

Time is a flat circle.

Full of scammer bots there.

I’m guessing you have not been alive long enough to remember that newspapers, especially tabloids, have always been demeaning of women. To be honest I think headline is timid sounding compared to twenty years ago, when tabloids were more popular and running sensationalist headlines, and the picture of the person being always the most unflattering. I don’t really see that kind of reporting nowadays, but it is now on social media where sensationalist shaming happens.

Literally everyone else: “It’s bad to arbitrarily arrest someone for criticising corruption and send them and their family to labour camps.”

Tankies: “That’s just, your opinion, man.”

Being a huge nerd on certain topics tend to ruin the fun of watching movies.

That’s why I am not buying new ones until I finish the others.

Edit: also, I do take the high seas. But only games coming from greedy devs who don’t deserve my money.

It’s Russia. They are accustomed to creating and following vague laws that are in effect also authoritarian and arbitrary. Many Soviet laws were the same.

Ironic that you used the image of Batman, because it is literally my interest on Batman that has been re-ignited.

It will take years for Lemmy to take off in much the same way as Reddit had slowly built up.

As I and other mentioned before, the main downside of Lemmy is that the community you care about isn’t here (and frankly, I don’t know if they will even come here at all). Like, we don’t have AskHistorians here, and the Lemmy for your hometown or country is either quiet or just completely died. So, I end up having no choice but to return to Reddit to keep in touch with those communities. However, as someone who is privacy conscious since Reddit now sells your data to train AI, I try to log in to Reddit with Tor. But even with the Onion site of Reddit, it won’t let me log in at most times because of technical discrepancy with stupid captchas or something. Sometimes I could log in via Tor but most times I’m not able to.

Anyhow, I would love Lemmy to take off as soon as possible but there is teething problem common in new communities. But the pessimistic side of me thinks it may not since so many people have become too invested in Reddit. And the latter intentionally hooked people in for the worst reasons.